Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 28, 2026

Anti-virulent Disruption of Pathogenic Biofilms using Engineered Quorum-quenching Lactonases
Published on: January 1, 2016
Diversity and polymorphism in AHL-lactonase gene (aiiA) of Bacillus
Nusrat Huma1, Pratap Shankar, Jyoti Kushwah
1Microbial Biotechnology and Genomics, Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology, CSIR, Delhi University Campus, Delhi-110007, India.
Abstract:
To explore bacterial diversity for elucidating genetic variability in acylhomoserine lactone (AHL) lactonase structure, we screened 800 bacterial strains. It revealed the presence of a quorum quenching (QQ) AHL-lactonase gene (aiiA) in 42 strains. These 42 strains were identified using rrs (16S rDNA) sequencing as Bacillus strains, predominantly B. cereus. An in silico restriction endonuclease (RE) digestion of 22 AHL lactonase gene (aiiA) sequences (from NCBI database) belonging to 9 different genera, along with 42 aiiA gene sequences from different Bacillus spp. (isolated here) with 14 type II REs, revealed distinct patterns of fragments (nucleotide length and order) with four REs; AluI, DpnII, RsaI, and Tru9I. Our study reflects on the biodiversity of aiiA among Bacillus species. Bacillus sp. strain MBG11 with polymorphism (115Alanine > Valine) may confer increased stability to AHL lactonase, and can be a potential candidate for heterologous expression and mass production. Microbes with ability to produce AHL-lactonases degrade quorum sensing signals such as AHL by opening of the lactone ring. The naturally occurring diversity of QQ molecules provides opportunities to use them for preventing bacterial infections, spoilage of food, and bioremediation.
Related Concept Videos
Multiple Allele Traits
Applications of Molecular Taxonomy
Inducible Operons: lac Operon
Allosteric Proteins-ATCase
Aspartate transcarbamoylase (ATCase) is a cytosolic enzyme that catalyzes the condensation of L-aspartate and carbamoyl phosphate to N-carbamoyl-L-aspartate. This reaction is the first step in pyrimidine biosynthesis. UTP and CTP, the end products of the pyrimidine synthesis pathway,...
Modern Molecular Taxonomy
Gene Regulation in Microbial Communities: Quorum Sensing
